The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-12-15

celted cOmfOrterS, "W1SdOm Will ole
with you." Christ not only used it in |
the text, but when he ironically compli- !
mented the putrefied Pharisees, saying,
"The whole need not physician, and
when by one word he described the cum
ming of Herod, saying, $50 ye and tell |
that fox.' Matthew Henry's COM
from the first page to the last, |
corruscated with humor as summer
clouds with heat lightning. John Bun
yan's writings are as full of humor as
they are of saving truth, and there is not
an aged man here who has ever read
''Pilgrim's Progress who does not re-
member that while reading it he smiled
as often as he wept. Chrysostom, George
Herbert, Robert South, John Wesley,
George Whitefeld, Jeremy Taylor, Row
land Hill, Nettleton, George G.. Finney
and all the men of the past who greatly
advanced the kingdom of God consecrated
their wit and their humor to the cause of
Christ. So it has been in all the ages,
and l say to these young theological
students who cluster in these services
Sabbath by Sabbath, sharpen your wits
as keen as cimeters, and then take them
into this holy war.
1t is a very short bridge between a
smile and q tear, a suspension bridge
from eye to lip, and it is soon crossed
over, and smile is sometimes just as
sacred as tear. There is as much re-
igion, and l think q little more, in a
spring morning than in a starless mid
night. Religious work without any humor
or wit in it is banquet with side of
beef, and that raw, and no condiments.
and no dessert succeeding. People will
not sit down at such a banquet. By all
means remove all frivolity and all bathos,
and all lightness and all vulgarity-strain
them out through the sieve Of holy dis
elimination; but, on the other hand, be-
ware of that monster which overshadows
the Christian church today, convention
atty, coming up from the Great Sahara
desert of ecclesiasticism, having on its
back hump of sanctimonious gloom,
and vehemently refuse to swallow that
camel.
Oh, how particular great many peo-
pie are about the infinitesimals while they
are quite reckless about the magnitudes.
What did Christ say? Did he not ex-
roriate the people in his time who were
30 careful to wash their hands before
meal but did not wash their hearts? 1t
is bad thing to have unclean hands; it
is a worse thing to have an unclean heart.
How many people there are in our time
who are very anxious that after their
death they shall be buried with their feet
toward the east, and not at all anxious
that during their whole life they should
face in the right direction SO that they
shall come up in the resurrection of the
Just whichever way they are buried How
many there are chiefly anxious that
minister of the Gospel shall come in the
line of apostolic succession, not caring SO
much whether he comes from Apostle
Paul or Apostle Judas. They have
way of measuring gnat until it is larger
than q camel.
Again, my subject photographs all
those who are abhorrent of small sins
while they are reckless in regard to mag
nifcent thefts. You will find many a
merchant who, while he is SO careful
that he would not take yard of cloth or
spool of cotton from the counter with
out paying for it, and who If a bank
cashier should make mistake and send
in a roll of bills S. too much would
dispatch a messenger in hot haste to
return the surplus, yet who will go into
stock company in which after a while
he gets control of the stock, and then
waters the stock and makes 100000
appear like 100000. He only stole
800, 900 by the operation. Many of
the men of fortune made their wealth in
that way. One Of those men, engaged in
such unrighteous acts, that evening, the
evening of the very day when he watered
the stock, will find a wharf rat stealing
a newspaper from the basement doorway,
and will go out and catch the urchin by
the collar, and twist the collar so tightly
the poor fellow cannot say that it was
thirst for knowledge that led him to the
dishonest act, but grip the collar tighter
and tighter, saying, Il have been looking
for you long while; you stole my paper
four or five times, haven you? you miser
able wretch" And then the old stock
| gambler, with voice they can hear three
blocks, will cry out, Police, police!"
That same man, the evening of the day
| in which he watered the stock, will kneel
with his family in prayers and thank
God for the prosperity of the day, then
kiss his children good night with an
| air which seems to say, 81 hope you
will all grow up to be as good as your
| father" Prisons for sins insectile in size,
| but palaces for crimes drOmedarian. No
mercy for sins animalcule in proportion,
but great leniency for mastodon iniquity.
| A poor boy slyly takes from the basket of
a market woman a choice pear-saving
some one else from the cholera-and you
smother him in the horrible atmosphere
of Raymond Street Jail or New York
| Tombs, while his cousin, who has been
skillful enough to steal $50, 900 from the
city, you will make him a candidate for
the New York legislature!
There is a great deal of uneasiness and
nervousness now among some people in
our time who have gotten unrighteous
fortunes, a great deal of nervousness
about dynamite. l tell them that God
will put under their unrighteous fortunes
something more explosive than dyna-
mite, the earthquake of his omnipotent
indignation. 1t is time that we learn in
America that sin is not excusable in pro-
portion as it declares large dividends and
mas outriders in equipage. Many man
Is riding to perdition, position ahead and
.ackey behind. To steal one copy Of q
newspaper is a gnat; to steal many thous
ands of dollars is camel. There Is many
fruit dealer who would not consent to
steal basket Of peaches from a neigh
boris stall, but who would not scruple tc
depress the fruit market; and az long al
can remember we have heard every
summer the peach crop Of Maryland
is failure, and by the time the cror
comes in the Misrepresentation makes 9
difference of millions of dollars. A mar
who would not steal one peach baske
steals $4,000 peach baskets. Go down IL
the summer time into the Mercantile
library, in the reading rooms, and see tn,
newspaper reports of the crops from al
parts of the country, and their phraseol
ogy is very much the same, and the same
men wrote them. methodically and in
famously carrying out the huge lying
about the grain crop from wear to wear an(